


Loser's Game

by parkadescandal



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Awkward Dates, Depression, M/M, Online Dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 09:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20691587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkadescandal/pseuds/parkadescandal
Summary: not the way you’re thinking. it’s not like a romance movie, riku. people don’t just meet cute in real lifewhat do you want, for it to just land in your lap? for someone to fall out of the sky and bail you out of your worst nightmare?to fall to their knees and sob that you’re the one they’ve been looking for this whole time?





	Loser's Game

**Author's Note:**

> there's just not enough canon compliant content for this fandom & ship, like we have so much to work with already, why would you compromise the raw power of childhood best friends & grand fantasy adventures & incredible growth arcs & donald duck just to slap them in some mundane scenario you can find anywhere else
> 
> anyway here's my modern au they meet on tindr and it goes sort of terrible
> 
> rating clarif & head's up if you need it: characters do a lot of swears and there's mentions of consumption of vacation juice (in excess) and a good shake of that millennial nihilist black humor that borders on ideation of self-harm. also, riku acts like an absolute douchebag.

In his line of sight Naminé sits in her customary pose, and he doesn’t need to look to see her patient but put upon expression. If he doesn’t make a motion soon, she’ll take the phone from his hand again and make judgment calls on his behalf, which isn’t even the worst nightmare. He’s already living that one, having endured as she quietly chose photos and composed platitudes to set him up a profile on one of those ubiquitous dating apps.

“If you started dating you might be a little less insufferable,” she’d said, plucking the phone from him, watching his hand twitch with anxious energy each time he thought to take it back from her and shaking her head. Each time she made a change she’d ask for approval. Each time she’d be denied. Each time she went ahead with it anyway.

“Why is this so important to you, anyway,” he says to the phone with a look of consternation, frozen to the spot with indecision. “What if I’m perfectly fine? What if I’m perfectly happy?”

Disdain, maybe displeasure, crosses her face. She takes the phone once more, ignoring his beleaguered sigh.

“Because you aren’t,” she says simply, shifting backward and holding the phone protectively close to her chest as he reaches for it for the umpteenth time. “You are only saying it because this is hard for you. I know you want to get out of it. But I’m tired of waiting for you to get out there on your own. I see the expression on your face when you catch couples holding hands walking by: _oh, woe is me, Riku, doomed forever. Handsome young single gay man, trapped forever in isolation, the whole world out of my reach, no one high enough to meet my standards—_”

He bristles.

“Take it back. You know that’s not true.”

“Then admit that you won’t do it because you’re scared.”

“You won’t even _let me do it myself_—”

“Because you swipe left on anyone who you think even _looks_ like they might be too good for you because you’re already worried that they’ll either _reject _you or that they’ll _like you back_.”

“That doesn’t even make any _sense_.”

“I know. That’s why I’m doing it for you. Look.”

She holds up a picture from someone’s profile. He peers down, captured for a moment.

“His hair’s a fuckin’ mess,” he says, wrinkling his nose, but it’s too late—Naminé has already seen the way his eyes had gone soft for a moment, horribly charmed.

“Don’t touch it,” she says, but he taps it, summarily banishing the evil, but nothing new appears. He looks at it for a second, dazed, before he realizes what’s happened.

“Screenshot,” she says smugly, pulling up the profile and holding it afar with a warning glance. “Please just look.”

He had promised to humor her, after all. He sighs again, somehow even louder than before, and squints down. His whole face turns up.

“Ugh. _Bisexu—_”

“_Don’t you dare_,” she says forcefully with a punitive backhand to the jaw.

He rubs his chin and rolls his eyes but labors on.

“_Athletic_,” he breathes in derisive sing song.

“Which shouldn’t be a problem, since you single handedly keep the local gym in business—”

“Likes _animals_, and the _beach_, and evidently smiling like an _idiot_ any time there’s a camera within 50 feet.”

“Two out of three’s not bad,” she prompts.

“Not even that. ‘_Like the beach_,’ I moved _away_ from the beach.”

Livid, he realizes that she’s allowed him full control of the phone now, having seen the hook embed itself deeply.

“Oh, fantastic, he’s _quirky_,” he says with disgust, knowing it’s already much too late. “Is that a fucking _duck?_”

  
  


He won’t admit that he’s sick to his stomach while waiting so he texts Naminé instead, trying not to look shifty eyed and anxious while staring at his phone like he’s already engaged in intense conversation. He’s been there for twenty minutes already, which, to be fair, was twenty minutes too early, but it’s 8:01 now and clearly he’s been stood up.

_why can’t i do this the old fashioned way. just meet someone organically out there in the wild._

**don’t be such a romantic. you know it doesn’t work that way.**

_just because neither of us has tried it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen._

**not the way you’re thinking. it’s not like a romance movie, riku. people don’t just meet cute in real life.**

**what do you want, for it to just land in your lap? for someone to fall out of the sky and bail you out of your worst nightmare?**

**to fall to their knees and sob that you’re the one they’ve been looking for this whole time?**

**do you think there’s someone pre-equipped to forgive you for every terrible thing you say when you’re feeling down on yourself? **

**heaven forbid someone even try to save you from yourself. **

_you’re being a little excessive right now and i don’t appreciate it._

_have you considered that maybe i’d be the knight in shining armor? _

_also, do we maybe need to talk? _

**have a good time and please be safe.**

It is now 8:12 and he’s wondering what on earth possessed him to reschedule his date with the bottom of the ocean.

He’s staring ahead with his best “I’m just casually enjoying some alone time accompanied by my second cocktail and not contemplating my own mortality” face when he hears a soft “_hey_” and looks up to meet it. There he finds Sora, formerly of The Internet, making his debut live and in living color.

He’s surprised to find his first thought is that he’s awfully glad he hadn’t actually double booked, and feels like an idiot for it, flushing a little more about the cliché than anything. Naminé was right, he’s a disgusting sap: some hackneyed hind part of his brain is already scratching out the transcription of his feverish harlequin romance. But this is definitely that same stupid grin. Panic subsides, then increases tenfold when he realizes that the only thing he was more worried about than getting ghosted was him actually showing up.

“Sorry, I hope you weren’t waiting,” he says cheerfully. “Got a little held up.”

“Oh,” Riku says in a daze. “No, it’s fine.”

Sora pats his pocket with deliberate force and pulls out his phone for a second, wincing as he catches the time.

“Oh no,” he mutters. “I’m _really_ sorry.”

“No, really. It’s okay.” It’s uncanny to reassure when you’re the one who needs reassuring, but he promised Naminé he wouldn’t sabotage the mission this early in the game. That’s about all he’s got, though, and they look at each other for another moment.

“So, uh,” Riku says eloquently, pointing to his drink, then gesturing in the general direction of the bar, “do you. Uh. Wanna.”

And if that’s the level of poetry he’s capable of, he hopes the ocean didn’t lose his number.

  
  


“Your aim’s not bad.”

“So yours is better?”

Before he left Naminé gave him a pointed reminder to watch his posture, and she didn’t mean the way he stands—though she’d been quick to follow up about that, too: _for goodness’s sake, please stop hunching over like that, you are entirely too tall—_

Yet here he is, peacocking in front of what amounts to a glorified skee ball machine.

“Oh, just watch this,” he says, and proceeds to scoop up one of the little projectiles, vaulting it forward and following with the next, and the next, right into the trickiest target—three in a row. He relishes in the aura of awe it receives him.

“You’re really good at this,” he says.

“I mean. You should see me on the inflatable joust.”

“Oh yeah?” he grins, then mimes a stance, poking out with an imaginary lance. “Bet I could give you a run for your money.”

He is, perhaps, a little drunk. He decides to play along, and smiles.

“How’s that?”

“I’m great at it. You gotta be quick on your feet when you’re training to be a pirate one day.”

It’s completely airheaded and so sincere, and Riku squints for a moment.

“...Are you an idiot?”

He was meant just to think it, but it slipped out with ease all the same, lubricated by liquid courage, and who knew _that_ would backfire? He watches Sora’s face fall before his own even has time to go slack with shock, but it’s just one nauseating millisecond before he’s schooled it again with a tight little smile.

“I mean… a little,” he laughs weakly.

“Shit. Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, that was… really cruel. _Shit_. I don’t think you’re an idiot, I promise.” Well. Maybe for not taking that instant to turn tail and move far, far away, as quickly as possible.

“‘S’alright. I’m kinda used to it.”

He breathes in, horrified.

“Wait, no, what? That’s not… that’s not fair. No, I’m sorr— _yeesh_. That’s fucked up.”

“Don’t worry about it. I was kidding. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Sora shakes his head, eyebrows furrowed, concern doubled back onto Riku. If he’s using _kidding_ here is the same way he usually means _kidding_, then Riku’s already dug himself entirely too deep; he’s committed a thorough and irreparable fucking up.

He’s startled to realize that he’s mad. Who would fucking say that? Well. He would fucking say that, apparently, but still.

“No, that’s. You’re. I don’t think you’re an idiot. I think you’re really great, actually. Like, probably the best kind of person, and everybody else can get lost.”

His mouth chooses that moment to snap shut as if it doesn’t realize it’s already too late. He’s splurged on a two for one special on utter embarrassment.

“...That’s sweet,” Sora responds, soft, looking up at him with lips pressed together, almost shy.

“No, that’s awful, that’s bitter—_you’re _sweet, I’m…”

_An absolute train wreck._ Abort mission. He stops, hand halfway to his mouth, and clears the air with a wave of his hand, centering himself with a look of sincere concentration.

“Hey. How’s it going. What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?” He gets the shadow of a little grin, a real one, in the same family as the one from all of the pictures, and he’s dizzy with selfish relief. He plows on. “So is this guy bothering you?” he squints with mock concern, jerking a thumb back to point at himself. “Because I can take care of him for you if you like.”

The laugh that’s been building up in him as he watches along with earnest eyes lets loose in one quick beautiful burst, a standing ovation for the show he’s put on for him, better than raucous applause.

“You’re funny,” he says, in that same soft tone but gilded with confidence, like he’s making an important observation. He looks at him and nods in another direction before walking on, expecting him to follow. Riku does, trying to mind twisting his ankle on the cobblestone of his own dubious intention.

  
  


It’s quietly comfortable for another hour or so until the place starts clearing out, but it’s always threatening to slide back into the territory of awkwardness. When Sora says _I’ve gotta go, thanks for coming out with me, here, put your number in my phone,_ Riku is sure he is just practicing his social niceties and acquiesces. They say their good nights and go their separate ways, and he trudges home, subdued, defeated, the edges of a little hangover headache brewing, and slinks over to where Naminé is sketching on her chair in the center room to fess up that he blew it.

“Insulted him?” she asks. She sounds a little sad.

“Yeah,” he says grimly. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”

He sits, hanging his head, and is much less annoyed than he thought he’d be at how transparent she is, sitting with him in solidarity while meticulously shading in fine detail on a piece she’d long since finished. He’s between letting the universe decide the penalty for boorishness or going in and uncoupling their profiles himself to spare him the reminder when he gets a message. As he blinks at the phone and goes to pull it up, another comes through.

_ **that was fun** _

** _thank you for being nice_ **

He gives a little hum of confusion just as the final comes through.

_ **I hope you have a good night!** _

“What was that?” Naminé says sleepily.

“Um. I don’t know.”

She looks up to see him holding up his phone, helpless and bemused, and peers over at it.

“I told you.”

She closes her sketchbook and replaces each pencil with delicate care, then stands over him, putting a hand on his shoulder with comforting pressure. He looks at her, then the phone, unsure how to respond, but finally lands on something true but non committal so that she may dismiss herself from her due diligence.

_same. you too._

He saves the contact in his phone as _Sora Who Is Definitely Not An Idiot_ and resolves not to think of it again.

  
  


The phone buzzes in his hand late that next morning; in shock, he literally flings it a foot away.

“A _voice call?”_ he cracks, incredulous, pointedly ignoring Naminé’s unimpressed stare. He’s got every intention to let it go to voicemail, but his hand reaches out unbidden to answer and he lets out one comically unstable _”Hello?”_

It’s barely a minute long and all a blur—he invites him to an event, but _no sorry, maybe next one, thanks, no you too_. He hangs up, spacey expression still lingering on his face.

“So?” she asks. “Are you gonna see him again?”

“I don’t… actually know? Don’t care one way or the other,” he says, waving it away before leaping on to the opportunity to change the subject. “Which reminds me. Have _you _been seeing anyone lately?”

She is silent, which doesn’t mean a thing but he’ll pretend it’s answer enough on its own.

“No one good enough for you, either,” he says, smug. “They’d have to clone me.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Straighter,” she says in half hearted agreement. “Much more earnest, of course.”

But she resumes silence, cryptic as before. He stifles the vibration in his pocket in hopes she won’t hear it and surreptitiously pulls it out to see.

_ **Since you can’t make it tonight ** _

** _Maybe I can meet you somewhere tomorrow am instead_ **

** _If you’re free_ **

** _Will that work?_ **

In the ten second window he’s got before she notices, he spares a mournful thought for a time in which he didn’t have to expend the mental energy required to text back.

  
  


He’s harangued into coffee the next morning and upon being greeted by the big dumb stupid grin again Riku for the first time starts to think that maybe, just possibly, he didn’t ask him out again just because he felt bad. He barely has time to recover from _that_ when Sora also has the nerve to do something _cute_—_I know you left, but it was so long ago that maybe you’d like a little reminder_—and when he looks down to find that he’s presented him with a little keychain with a seashell on it he flushes all over, warm from top to bottom, thoroughly terrified.

“Take this,” he says to Naminé as he shoves his phone at her and proceeds to collapse on to the sofa, curled up in on himself with his arms over his head. “Hide it. I started looking at shiny things. Shiny expensive things.”

“That’s wonderful,” she says with a smile.

“It’s _horrible,_ what are you talking about? I’m looking at _jewelry_! What would I even… What would that even sound like? It’s ridiculous! ‘Here, take this necklace, because you’re adorable and I’d like to see your face a lot?’”

“I know you think you’re joking, but have you considered actually being that sincere?”

He doesn’t respond, head still covered, and she gently places his phone on the table in front of him with a little _clack_.

  
  


He’s down to only about thirty minutes of panicked procrastination instead of taking three hours to respond, and what ebbed and napped in lulls becomes a stream of continuous conversation. He’s still just fine letting him take the reins on it, though, and even passively plays game to the occasional suggested outing. They meet here and there with increasing frequency, and do the whole mutual stuttered out _you know I’m not talking to anyone else right now but it doesn’t have to be exclusive_, and it’s somewhere in between sneakily letting himself out in the very early morning and muffling swears as he slams into his end table in the dark, Naminé poking her head out to monitor, that he realizes that he’s content, and having a good time, and maybe possibly even a little happy.

  
  


“I’ve been worried about you,” Naminé says, yanking on the kid gloves. She uses the very most delicate whisper of her already soft voice, the kind she usually saves for when he’s nuzzled up with some real idiocy, made a bed with bad decisions, cozied up with the quickest and dirtiest of self-destructive behaviors. The one he knows well from the other side of three shots or reps or drunk texts too many, from down and out on the edge of missed phone calls and canceled plans and drifting friendships.

“Whyever would you say that,” he says from facedown on the floor.

“I can’t do this for you. Not really.”

“But what if I can’t?” he breathes to the rug.

“I’ve been holding out hope that you’ll decide to do it anyway.”

He keeps his gaze bored into the opposite direction, far away, without a word.

“If you’re waiting for the universe to give you permission to deserve something, you’ll be on hold for a very long time. But no one’s going to stop you, either.”

He closes his eyes and breathes in, grateful to his core that she’s still here. It occurs to him suddenly that they’ve slept under the same roof this entire time and he somehow still doesn’t have a blessed idea of what’s going on in her life.

“Are you okay?” he asks in a rush, “I mean. How are you doing, is everything going well?”

“I’ll push through.”

He swallows the guilt that races up him before he can utter even one more self-centered sentence.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she says, bright, genuine. “Just be better.”

“Thanks,” he says, light and low, but she’ll read him loud and clear.

  
  


He arranges two tickets and a crisp little brochure neatly on the table. Somewhere warm and sunny and sandy with lots to do, because Sora likes experiences with risky shit like skydiving or scuba or dancing in public, the latter on its own enough to give Riku the bends. But hell with it. He’ll try spelunking. Maybe karaoke—but baby steps; maybe the kind in a private room, can’t get too crazy.

He shakes his head and hesitates, really more out of the habit of it, and snaps a photo to send along.

_so how do you feel about getting away for a few days? _

**Author's Note:**

> it's always jokes.
> 
> [title](https://youtu.be/eJIN85a_ml4)


End file.
